Apollo, Datar Cancer Genetics bring blood test to detect breast cancer

Hyderabad: Apollo Cancer Centres in association with Datar Cancer Genetics launches EasyCheck Breast – a revolutionary blood test that can detect breast cancers at early stages in asymptomatic individuals with high accuracy, thus enabling timely diagnosis and treatment to save lives.

With an easy draw of a 5 ml of blood, EasyCheck Breast can help in the detection of breast cancer even before the first stage, called as zero stage. This test is available across Apollo network in the country from Wednesday. It is priced at $1,000 in the Western countries.

This is a first of its kind blood test approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). It is offered at a subsidised cost of Rs 6,000 in India. Apollo Cancer Centres urges the Central and State governments to include this test in health schemes to help more poor people.

Dr Prathap Reddy, Founder & Chairman, Apollo Hospitals, said, "The launch of EasyCheck Breast marks an important success towards quality technological advancements ensuring timely diagnosis and treatment to lower the mortality rate." "The word cancer was like a death sentence before, majority of the people faced serious consequences on account of cancer. The advances that have taken place, research being done, and clinical expertise has made a significant difference in treatment methodologies," he added. "The EasyCheck Breast is already being done in 15 countries including US and UK. In India, Apollo has an exclusive arrangement with Datar Cancer Diagnostics, we will do it for our patients in all our centers across the country and in all our facilities abroad," Dr Reddy informs. Rajan Datar, Founder & Chairman, Datar Cancer Genetics, said: "Unfortunately, most cancers are detected at advanced stages which necessitate more intensive and expensive treatments which have a greater risk of debilitating side effects and treatment failures."

EasyCheck- Breast is the culmination of years of collaborative international research and innovation and has been developed, tested, and validated on population-sized cohorts. Its accuracy has been an outstanding at about 99 per cent with virtually no false positives.

Dinesh Madhavan, President Group Oncology and International, Apollo Hospital Enterprises Ltd said, "The late diagnosis of breast cancer remains the sole cause of high mortality rate in breast cancer patients in India. With this, we address this root cause and make it earlier and easier."